Iwata on Nintendo Revolution (IGN March 28)

[Acert93]

Until they start losing money year after year there is no point ranting against them.

I hear this a lot with regard to Nintendo. How ironic, then, that so many actually FAULT Sony and Microsoft for wanting to make money, for being corporations that must make profits to continue doing business.

In any case, I don't agree that Nintendo is beyond reproach so long as it makes money.

What?

I never, ever, said they were above reproach. Look back over the post you quote. I specifically site issues I disagree with. As for faulting Sony and MS for making money, I have never done such. Basically you are setting up a straw man. Oh well.

The ranting I was talking about, in context (go back and read the previous posts), is that they need to close down business, stop making consoles, should only be a 3rd party, etc... There is, at this time, absolutely no reason for them to do this. Less the fact people are upset they cannot get their games on the PS2 or Xbox. But Nintendo has this to say to those people: "If you want our games buy our consoles". This is a business choice where Nintendo is leveraging the franchises to EARN MONEY.

Btw, generalities do no good. I can talk about what is good for Nintendo and still disagree. Sure, I would love to see Nintendo's games on other platforms--but that does not mean I have to insert my personal desire before trying to understand their business decisions.

I believe that they, like any company, deserve their share of constructive criticism - and maybe more, as I myself have scratched my head often over the past 10 years over decisions they have made

As for possibly deserving more criticism, basically you are saying you do not agree with them so you feel free to unleash on them more? Do you give your favorite companies you agree with more slack? Saying you think Nintendo possibly deserves more criticism indicates that much. There is a word for that type of behavior

Anyhow, when they leave you scratching your head, just remember that you are probably not Nintendo's intended audiance.

 

[hovz]

hovz, do not continue to troll on this board. If you do one more itme and me or jvd see it you will be banned.


I'm asking all members of this board to alert jvd or I if hovz makes a post that is trolling or inflammatory in any single way. Send us a pm please.

ok hitler, whatever gets you off on your internet power trip.

 

[jvd]

Hovz do not post in this section of the forum again. I will delete any of your posts upon seeing them or being informed that they exist .

 

[Teasy]

well why doesn't everyone skydive, or ride a motorcycle, or play crossword puzzles...different people like different things, that's natural and you're never going to get everyone on the planet into video games. and while a radically different controller might appeal to some new gamers, it might also alienate the existing gamers. can they create enough new gamers to offset that? they would have to, and that's a pretty tall order. just doesn't seem like a recipe for success.

People like doing different things for a reason though. Changing parts of that experience can give people a reason to try something they never wanted to try before. They don't beed to convince the whole world to start playings games. They just need to convince a very small portion of them. Aso clearly Revolution can't be radical enough to alienate exsisting gamers since it plays GC games. Therefore it has to support a standard control system which can play all the more traditional games just like XBox 2 and PS3. Only it will also have the option of a new control system as well, which will be the primary control method, for Nintendo's own games at least. Perhaps it can even be one controller that can be used in a traditional manor but can also be used in a totally new way.. hard to imagine as that is.

 

[mckmas8808]

Regardless of how you perceive Nintendo we can all agree that this year's E3 in May will be the best E3 in videogaming history.
________
Vapor Genie

 

[Acert93]

Regardless of how you perceive Nintendo we can all agree that this year's E3 in May will be the best E3 in videogaming history.

I think 2006 will be better.

I think most developers are aiming for 2006 for the "start" of the next gen, so I do not expect a lot of playable next gen titles this year. I expect X2 to be in full view, but I think Rev and PS3 will only have video loops and no detailed specs will be shown (just the basics). I think Sony and Nintendo will try to keep the focus on 2005 products (games and portables).

In 2006 all three will be playable, X2 will have ~100 games slated to be released by the end of 2006 so many will be playable, Halo 3 should be shown, Rev and Mario 128 will be playable, and Sony will be bringing out the big guns.

I see 2005 as the year of the PSP and NDS with a small taste of the next gen; 2006 will be when Sony/Nintendo make their push for the next gen. I think 2005 will be great, but I think 2006 is when we will really start to see GREAT next gen software previews and all three parties will be dancing to the same tune.

 

[Readykilowatt]

I myself have scratched my head often over the past 10 years over decisions they have made.

Scratched your head? Didn't you know that the decisions they have made over the last 10 years have made them billions of dollars? BTW, don't waste your time worrying about Nintendo. They will still be in the console business (hardware and software) long after you're gone from this world.

 

[Kolgar]

Will they? We'll see.

Sony knocked them down in the console market and is now attacking Nintendo's last stronghold with the amazing PSP. There should be sirens and flashing lights all through the halls at NCL.

How will Mario & Co. respond? Ten years on, I'm still waiting for them to mount a serious counterattack to Sony's PlayStation home console. Perhaps they're happy being relegated to a niche market of kids' games.

But at the rate they've been going, 10 years from now, they may be lucky to have that.

 

[Readykilowatt]

Sony knocked them down in the console market and is now attacking Nintendo's last stronghold with the amazing PSP.

Yet, neither Sony (with over 80 million PS2s shipped) nor Microsoft (with over 3 billion dollars in losses) has hurt Nintendo's ability to make huge profits in this business.

There should be sirens and flashing lights all through the halls at NCL.

....and SCEI and Microsoft.

How will Mario & Co. respond? Ten years on, I'm still waiting <snip>

Stop right there. Listen carefully, Nintendo doesn't care about you. If you are now dissatisfied with Nintendo, it will be way too expensive for Nintendo to reverse the feeling that you have. It is far easier and much, much cheaper for any company to gain new customers than it is for them to bring back dissatisfied customers. What they care about right now is gaining new customers in addition to keeping the loyal fans and the satisfied customers (like me ) faithful.

 

[Qroach]

Yet, neither Sony (with over 80 million PS2s shipped) nor Microsoft (with over 3 billion dollars in losses) has hurt Nintendo's ability to make huge profits in this business.

How is this true exactly? MS cut right into potential sales of the gamecube. Nintendo sold less consoles and Sony sold about the same as last time. So who lost market share? Nintendo also sold less console games this gen compared to last. The only significant profit came from the gameboy advanced (a market they HAD no competitors in).

So to say MS nor Sony hurt nintendo's ability to make huge profits isn't a fair opinion, considering the market the majority of nintendo's profits came from, that being the handheld market.

 

[Fox5]

Yet, neither Sony (with over 80 million PS2s shipped) nor Microsoft (with over 3 billion dollars in losses) has hurt Nintendo's ability to make huge profits in this business.

How is this true exactly? MS cut right into potential sales of the gamecube. Nintendo sold less consoles and Sony sold about the same as last time. So who lost market share? Nintendo also sold less console games this gen compared to last. The only significant profit came from the gameboy advanced (a market they HAD no competitors in).

So to say MS nor Sony hurt nintendo's ability to make huge profits isn't a fair opinion, considering the market the majority of nintendo's profits came from, that being the handheld market.

Umm, how do you know where Nintendo makes its profit?
The gameboy market isn't as profitable as it seems, it has a very low software to hardware attach ratio, the games are budget priced, most sales are 3rd part games and not 1st, and the games are on carts which cost more to produce than gamecube's disks.
On GameCube, the majority of games sold are Nintendo's, there is a much higher software to hardware attach ratio, they can sell add ons to the system(like controllers and anemic memory cards!), and the disks are cheap to produce and most of the games full priced.

Gameboy probably does make most of nintendo's profits now(though it didn't last gen) but Gamecube almost certainly brought in a significant amount this gen.

 

[Qroach]

Umm, how do you know where Nintendo makes its profit?

Call it an educated guess. THe GBA has always been profitable for nintendo.very profitable. GC on the other had hasn't made nintendo the kind of dollars the GBA has, and certainly not the kind of money the n64 did.

The gameboy market isn't as profitable as it seems,

Not Profitable for any one but Nintendo and possibly THQ. how many GBA's had been sold thus far? nintendo makes profit on everyone of them, unlike the Gamecube which was sold at a loss, started to make a profit, and then sold at a smaller loss when it dropped to 99 bucks (who knows right now, but I doubt it's making nitnendo very much.

Also I was comparing what nintendo was making compared to last gen, you know where they had a number of games that sold 10 million units worth and had far more consoles, and thrid party games released. Logic would dictate that they made more money back then. they haven't had anything come close on the game cube to selling into the double digit millions.

but Gamecube almost certainly brought in a significant amount this gen.

How? when they sold less first party and third party games, sold less consoles, and had to cut price numerous times to make the machine move at retail?

 

[Inane_Dork]

Umm, how do you know where Nintendo makes its profit?

We can't tell for sure since Nintendo never separates the figures for the public, but I will say this: if Nintendo isn't making money hand over fist from a market they hold a monopoly over, they are supremely dumb.

 

[Fox5]

Umm, how do you know where Nintendo makes its profit?

We can't tell for sure since Nintendo never separates the figures for the public, but I will say this: if Nintendo isn't making money hand over fist from a market they hold a monopoly over, they are supremely dumb.

Hey, it's not easy holding a monopoly, you tend to become overconfident and wasteful.

And I was more debating that gamecube hasn't made significant profits for nintendo, maybe it no longer is, but its first 2 or 3 years should have brought in a good amount of money.

 

[Acert93]

I think the GCN may be profitable for Nintendo, but the big problem is that your big money years are at the end when you have a huge install base and are able to sell AAA titles and make huge money and to make a lot of licensing money by 3rd parties selling a lot of games.

MS sold almost 7M copies of Halo 2. Hopefully for Nintendo they sell 3 or 4M copies of Zelda (MP2 seemed to lose some steam... good game none the less). You really want to go out with a bang in a generation so you can hit the new generation hard with some momentum. Nintendo had some great momentum in 2003 but 2004 has been very uneventful (at least in my eyes).

With pressure on the handheld and home console areas Nintendo knows they need to react. That is why Iwata is constantly talking about branching out to new gamers.

 

[Kolgar]

How will Mario & Co. respond? Ten years on, I'm still waiting <snip>

Stop right there. Listen carefully, Nintendo doesn't care about you. If you are now dissatisfied with Nintendo, it will be way too expensive for Nintendo to reverse the feeling that you have. It is far easier and much, much cheaper for any company to gain new customers than it is for them to bring back dissatisfied customers. What they care about right now is gaining new customers in addition to keeping the loyal fans and the satisfied customers (like me ) faithful.

It's unfortunate, but you're right: Nintendo doesn't care about me. Something I realized at the tail-end of the Super NES days - the last time I felt that Nintendo really wanted what was best for gamers like me.

But it's not my loss. Every year, I spend thousands of dollars on video game hardware and software. And I've been gaming for nearly 30 years.

The thing is, Nintendo could have kept me as a loyal customer if they'd just kept their promises and maybe grown with me a little. But for some reason, Nintendo has always seemed content to do what it does - cater to its young demographic, ignore important technological trends, and spout empty rhetoric about its grandiose plans to regain the throne and garner third-party support, all while maintaining an impenetrable veil of secrecy.

I don't view this as a personal slight. I view it as bad business.

So if Nintendo doesn't care about me, fine. Sony and Microsoft have shown that they're willing to give me what I want even if Nintendon't.

Meanwhile, I just sit back, year after year, and watch as competitors take larger and larger bites out of Nintendo's mindshare and marketshare. It makes for a fascinating case study. In that respect, Nintendo's providing me pretty good entertainment after all.

 

[PC-Engine]

Business is about profit so how is tht bad business?

Bad business is losing billions to gain marketshare or losing billions to keep marketshare.

There are individuals born everyday and unsatisfied people like you can be easily replaced. It's like people who are unsatisfied at their workplace. They always complain the low salary but when they eventually quit, they are easily replaced, because there are hundreds of other people who will do the same job for less. Why keep increasing this person's salary to only lose profits? That's just business.

 

[Kolgar]

Business is about profit so how is tht bad business?

Bad business is losing billions to gain marketshare or losing billions to keep marketshare.

I'm not so sure. If you're referring to Microsoft, what other choice does it have? It's trying to displace a market leader - Sony, no less - and that takes money. Lots and lots of money.

No doubt they consider the losses an investment. Should they win the battle for the living room, there are untold billions to be made. They simply can't afford NOT to try. The potential rewards are too great.

There are individuals born everyday and unsatisfied people like you can be easily replaced.

Yep, 10 million four-year-olds will turn five this year and ask mommy and daddy for the latest Mario Party game. Meanwhile, just as many 10-year-olds will see their big brothers' PSPs or mature-themed PS2 games and say, "Forget Mario, I want this."

Why doesn't Nintendo try to expand its appeal instead of simply allowing its customers to "graduate" to its competitors? You can't very well grow your business if all you are is a turnstile to your competition.

This, I think, is one of the reasons Nintendo's fan base is eroding, slowly but surely.

I think the company is in real trouble. Sure, it's profitable now, but what happens if PSP gains a foothold in the portable market? What if, like the original PlayStation, PSP not only expands the market, but eats half of Nintendo's pie as well?

Portables are now not only Nintendo's bread and butter, but its last bastion. If Sony overpowers them here, what's Nintendo to fall back on? I suppose there's always playing cards...

I just don't know what it will take for Nintendo to wake up. Sony's been delivering the wake-up calls for 10 years now, but Mario & Co. seem to be in a coma. I just don't understand. Unless they make dramatic changes to their philosophies and approaches - and fast - I think the next few years will see an amazing thing - the fall of this once-mighty company.

***Edit***

To address the points of the original post, I understand that "simplicty" may be a strategy to expand the market to non-gamers. But will it work? Can Nintendo successfully win over people who have never played games without alienating the rest of us?

How far is Nintendo willing to dumb games down? Already, all their games are colorful, cartoony, and completely kid-friendly. Are we talking a return to Game & Watch here?

In the 1990s, I saw Yamauchi criticize "mature" games for being dark and depressing. Meanwhile, Sony sold these titles by the tens of millions and replaced Nintendo as the market leader. Today, I see Iwata criticizing game complexity at a time when - again - sophisticated games are driving the market and selling more than ever.

It seems to me that Nintendo's seeing "problems with the market" when it should be looking for problems in its own marketing strategy.

 

[Fox5]

Portables are now not only Nintendo's bread and butter, but its last bastion. If Sony overpowers them here, what's Nintendo to fall back on? I suppose there's always playing cards...

Nope, Yugioh already ate Pokemon.

BTW, I think GameCube was probably the sink or swim time for Nintendo, nothing they do with Revolution can allow them to retake the market, I think the most they can hope for is to try and hold on to market share.

 

[PC-Engine]

DS is doing extremely well, even better than GBA when it was launched. PSP isn't a problem yet, but then there's Evolution to mitigate that potential problem. I'd be more worried about SONY since they barely make enough money to offset the expenditures and losses incured in designing and launching their products.

No doubt they consider the losses an investment. Should they win the battle for the living room, there are untold billions to be made. They simply can't afford NOT to try. The potential rewards are too great.

Well they'll probably make money in the console business after 10 years of losing money, but it won't be billions. The Xbox is already what 4 years old?